About

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”
~Lewis Carroll

I grew up in an advertising household. My dad graduated from the Western Business School, then joined Russell T. Kelley Advertising, where he spent his whole career as an account service guy (or ‘suit’, in the parlance of the day). I remember him asking me one day what I thought of his new radio ad. When I told him I didn’t think much of it at all, he paused, then said, “well, you’re not in the target group anyways”. And so, started my early fascination with advertising … and marketing … and branding … design … psychology … research …

A marketer and advertiser at heart

Like my father, I’ve spent my entire career in the marketing and advertising arena. But unlike him, I have an even mix of agency and client-side experience, having worked for international advertising agencies like Leo Burnett and McCann-Erickson, and client side for familiar brands like Canadian Tire and Rogers Communications.

Marketing at work and play

I read a book recently that really struck a chord with me (The Vigorous Mind, Ingrid E. Cummings, 2009). In a world of increasing specialization, where people know more and more about less and less, the author argues for a return to a more holistic, generalist, Renaissance view of learning and living: to know something of many things. As a creative marketer and generalist, I like the idea of living in a world of both hard facts and abstract ideas. And I like the idea of leveraging the disciplines of marketing at work and at play. Whether you’re launching a new brand, redesigning your backyard or creating an Emcee wedding speech for people you hardly know, there’s much to be gained from applying marketing principles inside and outside the office.

Words of Wisdom

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough” ~Albert Einstein

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” ~Albert Einstein

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted" ~Albert Einstein

"There are times when it may be necessary to be wrong in order to be right at the end. This can happen when one is judged wrong according to the current frame of reference and then is found to be right when the frame of reference itself gets changed. Even if the frame of reference is not changed, it may still be useful to go through a wrong area in order to reach a position from which the right pathway can be seen" ~Edward de Bono

"A cry of 'cheating' always reveals the use of certain assumed boundaries or limits" ~Edward de Bono

"Six degrees of separation doesn't mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few" ~Malcolm Gladwell

"A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts" ~William Strunk

"If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present" ~Lao Tzu

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Copyright

All Weekly Muse music video clips sourced directly from Youtube. I do not claim copyright to these materials but include them here merely for ease of access to information under fair use. If you are a copyright holder and would like something removed, please contact me directly, per my contact info on the About page.